New Qualifying Changes

The FIA have now confirmed that the new qualifying changes will come into place for the first round of the 2016 season in Australia.

13/03/16

The FIA have introduced the new qualifying format to spice up the races and make Saturday’s qualifying more interesting and less predictable.

From my view, this is too complicated. With the new tyre rules introduced by Pirelli and now these changes to qualifying. I think this will confuse fans. But this also means that we should see more cars out on track during qualifying.

How will it work?

The three knockout sessions system remains, but instead of a number of drivers being eliminated after set time periods, the clock will start ticking during each session.

Q1 will run for 16 minutes. After seven of them the current slowest car will be eliminated. This process will repeat every 90 seconds until 15 cars are left.

Q2 will last for 15 minutes, and after six the 90-second elimination periods will start again until only eight cars are left.

Q3 will then see all eight cars running, but after five minutes six further cars will be eliminated over 90 second periods until only two cars are left in a head-to-head fight for pole position.

Although

Formula one boss, Bernie Ecclestone has admitted he is unsure about the changes to qualifying.

But reigning world champion, Lewis Hamilton believes the fans should judge whether the new format works or not.